Healing of the Heart
by LordRevanMandaloreofZutara
Summary: What heals the heart? Revenge? The Knowledge that your enemies lie dead at your feet? Or is it mercy, grace? Is it love of your soulmate? Katara returns to find out. Post War. Zutara. Reward Oneshot for Thawn716.


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This is Thawn716's reward oneshot for being the 50**th**** reviewer in my Star Wars Drabble Series. Sorry it is so late. This takes place post war. I hope you enjoy. **

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**Healing of the Heart**

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**Katara's POV **

It still burns in me. The desire for revenge.

It's so ironic that it almost makes me laugh. Water is cool, soothing, Master Jong-Jong had told me long ago. It heals, and soothes. And yet, here I am. I burn with the desire for revenge, and no amount of water can soothe me.

I have no peace. I have no harmony. Aang, he tries to help. Truly he does. But my time with him as his girlfriend has shown me the errors of my ways. While he may be my best friend, he is not the one I need right now.

So, I have left him. I left in the middle of the night. It is good that he is still too young for us to share a bed. I do not know what I would have done had he confronted me.

But I know that I must do this. I must get closure. One way or another. And for that, I can only think of one thing I must do. Kill Yon Rha. I spared him last time because he was too pathetic to kill.

I will not be so merciful this time.

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It was simple to find him. He had not moved from the village where Zuko and I had last found him. After making a few inquires, I found the location of his house. When I arrived there, he was sitting, relaxed and posed on a chair.

The sight nearly drove me to kill him right then and there. This man had destroyed my entire world, stolen my childhood, and beheaded my mother. He deserved no happiness in his pathetic excuse of a life!

But I refrain myself from acting. Instead, I follow him, discreetly, for days, letting the rage, anger, heat, and pain build up in my breast. I would constantly think of my father's ashen face after burning my mother, of my how my brother had become a bitter shell of the laughing boy he had been, of how my mother's head had lain on the ground, the blood freezing as it left her neck.

Then, after five days, I struck.

While Yon Rha was walking by the same place I had ambushed him some year and a half ago, I strike out, a furious water blast knocking him off guard. He slams against a tree, dropping the package of fruit he was carrying.

Dazed, he looks around, and when his eyes catch mine, I latterly feel his heart stop. "Y, y, you!" he gasps.

Blood now pumping behind my eyes, I release all of my pent up emotions in that instant. And then, the world became so much clearer.

With a flick of my wrist, I bend the blood in Yon Rha's body, flinging him into another tree.

"Please! Stop!" He cries as I spin him around, freezing his arms and legs to the tree.

"Why should I?" I ask quietly. As I speak, I am surprised at how calm I sound.

"You said I wasn't worth killing!!" He cries, desperately trying to free himself.

I shrug, indifferent to his pleas. "I changed my mind." I focus, bending my water into two whips. With a savagery I did not know I possessed, I tore into Yon Rha. I was careful not to kill him though. One way or another, this would end tonight. And it would not due to Yon Rha to die to early.

With flicks of my hands, my whips cut through his clothes, tearing flesh off bones. All the while, he screamed in agony. For over half an hour I tore into him, making sure that my entire's life pain was etched into his body.

When I was at last done, he was sprawled on the ground, his throat horse from screaming.

Only now, with the end in sight, did my anger enter my voice.

"You took her away from me! My mother!! And yet I let you live! WHY!?!? You don't deserve even a second of life! Why are you still alive and she is dead!!" I cry.

"It is called mercy." An all too familiar voice rings behind me. "If he had deserved you sparing him, it would not be called so."

I turn, and shake my head at Zuko, dressed in his old clothes, watching me impassively.

"I suppose Aang sent you? To come and fetch me?" I ask him, my tone going bitter.

He shakes his head, then looks down at Yon Rha's bloody body. Whatever he thinks of my actions, he keeps to himself. "No. Aang told me you had gone missing. He thinks someone kidnapped you." Both of us snort at the idea. "I, however, knew where you had gone. And it turns out that I was right."

"So what are you going to do Zuko? Stop me? Bring me back to Aang." I ask, years of bitterness coming up at the idea.

But Zuko merely shakes his head. "No. I will give you the choice I gave you back then. You can kill him, or spear him. Either way, no one will ever speak of this again."

I stare at him, knowing it had been wrong of me to doubt him. "Then what?"

He sighs and walks over to me. "Then what is up to you. You can go back to Aang. Or you can go to the Southern Water Tribe. But that will not settle the root of the problem."

I raise my eyebrow, curious to hear his thoughts. "And what is the root of the problem?"

"You need someone who can listen to you. Someone who you can let your problems out on. Aang is not that person. He still needs to grow, and leaving him is probably the best thing you can do for him."

An unexpected rush of heat rises up in me at his words. Though I did not want to admit it, Zuko is right.

"And what, you are offering yourself up as that person?" I ask, trying to deflect him.

"Yes." His sincerity touches something in me, and the rage starts to dissipate. And in my heart of hearts, the wall I had built around myself since the end of the war began to crack.

"Zuko," I say the name tenderly, "you know that I can't do that. For one the Nobles…"

"Are expendable." Zuko cuts me off. "I have just signed an agreement with the Order of the White Lotus, if the nobles cause any trouble for you, I will strip them of their land and give it to someone more deserving. They seem to think that because I favored peace I am not my sire's son. But if they push it, I will show them just how much like him I can be." The cold glare his eyes adopt does indeed remind me of Ozai.

"Zuko, I don't want to force people out of their homes. And besides, what your people think?" I ask again, stalling for time.

Zuko takes me into his arms, and holds me. Another crack in the wall around my heart appears. "The people love you. They know what you did, and what you sacrificed for peace. They respect you Katara."

The cracks occur faster now, and the wall crumbles when Zuko utters his next sentence. "And even if they didn't, I would still have you at my side."

The wall crumbles, and I know what I have needed all along. It was not revenge, though that was part of my journey. It was someone who I could lean on. Who could raise me up when I am down. One who could be there when I needed a hear. It was Zuko all along.

"Thank you Zuko." I whisper into his ear, before pulling his head down, and kissing him.

He responds with a great deal of passion, and had other things not been on my mind, I would have given in right then and there.

As it is, I had something to do. Breaking from the kiss, I turn to Yon Rha. With an amazing sense of peace, I use my water to heal him.

Zuko, watching, smiles. "So, you have finally put him behind you?"

I nod, smiling. "Yes. It is over. Now I can move on."

Then, taking my hand, Zuko leads me away from my past, and into my future.

**General POV**

Yon Rha rises slowly. "Is she gone?" he asks the air.

His reply comes in a well placed kick to his face. Falling on his back, his nose broken, Yon Rha looks up in terror at the raven haired woman standing before him.

"So, she spared you. Pity. There is power in destroying your enemies." Azula mutters, looking at Yon Rha as she might a rather annoying insect.

"Why?" Yon Rha asks. Though it is unclear whether he was asking Azula, or the Universe.

Azula sneers at him. "Zuko wants you punished. Katara has made her choice, and it is hers to make. But he does not take kindly to those who kill needlessly. And while he can forgive, you must pay for your crimes." She turns to go, but then whips around, bringing her battle claws around, slashing him across the face.

Yon Rha, so full of pain, does not even whimper. His throat has long since given out on him. Azula nods approvingly however. "Good. You at least know it is better to be silent now. Your time among free men is over. I have come to take you to hell. With all the other monsters, like me." Azula adds after a second. Unbidden, memories of the terrible deeds she had done coming to the front of her mind.

Then she shakes it off, remembering that Zuko had given her a second chance. She would not fail him.

With that thought, she turns to a now visible group of Royal Guards. "Take him. And don't worry about being gentle. This man will soon find a new definition for the term, hell on earth."

"Nooooo." Yon Rha moans as the guards surround him, letting lose their own version of torture.

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**Hahaha. I am being mean to Yon Rha, aren't I? Well he deserves it. I hope you enjoyed this Thawn. I am so sorry that it took me so long to get it out. Please forgive me (Does pleading look.) **

**Ow, and Azula spent a few months in the crazy house before Zuko came in and managed to get her sane again. **

**Till next time,**

**LordRevanGrandMasteroftheJedi**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, though if I did, I would certainly make a better finale. Nor do I own anything else but my OCs.**


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